


Eyes Open

by batyalewbel



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, Written for RebelCaptain Secret Santa 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-17 05:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13069659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batyalewbel/pseuds/batyalewbel
Summary: “Jyn,Jyn look at me.Roger that, heading to those coordinates.”He sounds scared… Why does he sound scared?





	Eyes Open

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for rxbxlcaptain for the Rebelcaptain Secret Santa exchange.  
> The prompt was "If you leave now, you get nothing.”  
> (technically posting a day early because I work tomorrow and who wants to bet I might forget but its posting to tumblr tomorrow)

_I was alone so long_  
_I didn’t even know that I was lonely_  
_Out in the cold so long_  
_I didn’t even know that I was cold_  
_Turn my collar to the wind_  
_This is how it’s always been_  
_All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own_  
_But now I wanna hold you too_

_—All I’ve Ever Known, Anaïs Mitchell_

_\---_

Jyn is having a bad day.

She woke up, still feeling worn to the bone and Hoth’s cold bites especially hard today.

Then she gets told she’s going on a mission with Captain Cassian Andor.

And she wonders if the universe is laughing at her.

\---

After Scariff everyone came back to Yavin IV and were largely kept apart in medical while the Rebellion decided what to do with them. (K-2 was allowed to stay with Cassian only because after the mechanics fixed him they couldn’t stand having the droid around).

They were released on the day of the Death Star mission led by Luke Skywalker.

(Bodhi has been starry eyed about that pilot ever since, Jyn’s been trying to get him to talk to Skywalker for _months_ with little success).

And Cassian...She was there beside him that day. Every member of the Rebellion had gathered in the hangar, waiting for news one way or the other. The intercom kept announcing how many minutes until the Death Star reached their planet.

She almost wonders now if she imagined it. Cassian hadn’t looked at her once, eyes fixed on the intercom, waiting for an announcement of their success or imminent demise.

At around the five minute mark she could swear he took her hand without a word.

Then the announcement came that the Death Star was destroyed and Cassian let go of her hand and walked away.

And that was the last meaningful interaction they’d had since.

Of course she saw him sometimes, it was impossible not to.

He was polite, he never outright ignored her, but there was a distance that appeared from nowhere that she didn’t understand.

She remembered the feeling of his arms around her. She remembered seeing him, broken and beautiful atop that tower with the blaster that saved her life. She remembered the way he looked at her in that dark elevator, his eyes heavy with things unsaid.

Now she wondered if she had imagined all of it.

“Just talk to him,” Chirrut would say, and she had tried once or twice, but every word would dry up at the sight of him. At the way he would look at her like they were little more than strangers or barely acquaintances. The way his gaze seemed to skate right past her sometimes.

She only stays with the Rebellion for Bodhi. For Chirrut and Baze.

They seem satisfied with their new home and she's not too inclined to say goodbye to the only family she's got left.

Sometimes she thinks that is the part that’s hardest to take with.

They got so close in such a short amount of time and now he's practically a stranger.

He had been the one to say _“All the way.”_

He had been the one who welcomed her home.

And now she was left with nothing but memories of something that burned a hole through her chest and left her empty.

\---

“If you leave now, you’ll get nothing Cassian,” Draven had said to him, his first night on Yavin IV.

“If you leave the Rebellion, I cannot protect you from what the Empire might do,” he continued and Cassian glared holes at the wall beside him in the med bay rather than look Draven in the eye.

“You know as well as I do that the Empire can find the identities of the Rogue One crew if they put their minds to it. And if you leave, I can’t protect you or your friends from that.”

Cassian looked sidelong at the general.

“You could but you won’t is what you mean,” he said and the general had the good grace to not deny it.

“The work you do is vital to the Rebellion and it would be a shame to lose,” he said and Cassian grimaced.

“Maybe I’m tired of the work, maybe I’ve done enough to earn this,” he growls and Draven only shrugs.

“I can give you some leave if you need a respite but I’m afraid I can’t let you go entirely Captain,” he says and Cassian feels his resolve cracking.

“And you’ll shield the others as well? Not just my identity, theirs too,” he says and Draven nods, And Cassian looked him dead in the eyes then with a grimace and a sense of what was to come.

A sense of what he would have to do in order to keep doing the work he’d been doing for so many years.

Oh _stars,_ did he hate it.

And then he has to go on a mission with her.

\---

It’s supposed to be a simple smash and grab as it were.

There is a high level Imperial Officer on Darknell who has apparently had a change of heart. Or just gone cowardly enough to turncoat.

There’s lots of good intel to be had from a talkative coward, even Jyn knows that from her days with the partisans.

As a Pathfinder now, she’s been assigned to help get Cassian and K-2 inside the facility where the officer has hidden a drive full of valuable information for them to steal.

And Bodhi is the one flying them there which adds an extra level of irony to the whole thing. The last time Bodhi flew them all it was from Scariff.

The pair of them were little more than a broken, burned, and bleeding mess, huddled together at the back of the ship’s hold. K-2 was a pile of half melted circuits and metal, yet to be repaired.

She remembers the way he held her hand and his grip never loosened, even after he fell unconscious. It felt like he was holding onto her for dear life.

Or she was holding onto him.

And Bodhi flew them then.

He’s ferried her on a mission or two, and him as well.

But not both of them together.

She knows that Bodhi is aware of this too. She can tell in the way his eyes are too big and round and worried whenever he looks at her.

Still, the mission itself begins without a hitch.

It’s just the three of them and it reminds her so painfully of Scariff, she has to bury it back down.

In a way K-2 is a relief. He treats her the way he always has, with great irritation.

That at least remains unchanged and when Cassian barely looks at her, it makes it easier somehow to listen to the droid get snippy in her direction.

They get inside the facility and that’s when things start to go wrong.

“Kay I thought you said you had deactivated the alarms.”

“I _did_ deactivate the alarms. Apparently they have backups.”

They’ve reached the prison deck and find the right cell. Kay unlocks it while Jyn lays down cover fire on an encroaching band of troopers.

Cassian hunches beside K-2 as the door opens and even Jyn glances back to see Cassian snatch up the drive sitting there and pocket it.

He looks right at her and for a moment she could swear he’s smiling at her. Then it’s gone in a flash.

“Let’s go,” he says.

And the next part seems to happen in almost slow motion. Cassian steps out into the hall and she sees the blaster bolt heading straight for him.

She doesn’t even think, she just knocks him to the ground and the feels the bolt bury a hole in her side pushing her down seconds later.

Cassian doesn’t even question it as more bolts fly over their heads he simply glances back at her with that look that’s almost like caring before it’s gone again.

“Come on, let’s go,” he says and Jyn pushes herself upright and thanks the stars for adrenaline.

They run and it very quickly becomes clear that she can’t keep up.

She can’t even fully feel the pain of it, but she’s tiring too fast. Getting breathless too fast.

She can see him looking almost impatiently at her.

(Or worried?)

“Come on Jyn,” he keeps saying while K-2 remains unusually silent.

They’re both dressed in dark clothes so she can’t even tell how bad the bleeding is really. She just feels numb by the time they’ve gotten out of the facility.

Bodhi is a good mile away since it’s hard to navigate a shuttle through trees.

There are still troopers in pursuit and she’s still firing with one hand, while the other presses to her side.

“Jyn,” Cassian says her name and he’s just a few steps ahead of her and there’s that look again that might be worry.

She takes a step towards him, her hand coming away from her side to try and balance and something about that makes Cassian freeze.

It takes her a moment to actually look down at her hand.

“Oh,” she says, her palm has been painted red with blood.

“That's worse than I thought.”

“Fuck,” Cassian swears and suddenly he’s right beside her and speaking into his earpiece, “Jyn’s been hit, requesting immediate evac.”

She can even hear the crackling response through her own earpiece but it sounds like gibberish in her ears.

“Jyn, _Jyn look at me._ Roger that, heading to those coordinates.”

He sounds scared… Why does he sound scared?

Her blaster is being tugged from her numb fingers,

“Kay can you provide some cover fire?”

“Affirmative.”

And without the gun in her hand it feels like she’s finally lost her balance. She crumples to the ground and she hears more cursing,

“Shit, _Shit!_ Jyn _stay with me.”_

Those words are like iron and she looks up at Cassian to see he looks… Afraid.

Everything seems to be going hazy and suddenly he’s standing over her and firing at stormtroopers. Staring down the barrel of his blaster, frenetic and a little wild at the edges. And then he’s kneeling beside her looking like…

Like he’s afraid. Almost frantic.

Everything is fading, going distant and muted.

“Jyn open your eyes. O _pen your eyes for me_ _please.”_

She doesn’t remember closing them.

“...Eyes open,” she mumbles and he’s nodding.

“Yes Jyn, I need you to keep your eyes open for me.”

And Cassian is there, with his arms around her and she’s being lifted, _carried._

“Just hold on Jyn, hold on for me.”

He's warm and holding her close and running. She rests her head against his shoulder and drifts.

Suddenly there are laser bolts coming from a new direction and gusts of air that nearly bowls them over.

And then she’s on a ship.

A shuttle.

She can hear Bodhi shouting from up at the front and there’s that strange pull that comes with jumping to hyperspace and K-2 looking down at her.

“Cassian would be very displeased if you died.”

She feels herself slipping again, she thinks she hears the droid say, “So would I.”

And then Cassian’s back with something clutched tight in his hands and he’s talking again.

“Jyn, hey talk to me Jyn, come on _please.”_

And her mouth feels weighted, her eyelids feel weighted. She feels like she’s underwater and she forces her mouth to move.

“Why are you so scared?”

And Cassian is digging through a kit of something and he freezes again. Looks at her with an expression she can’t begin to decipher.

He looks away to pour something over her side, and it _burns._

_“Sorry, Jyn I’m so sorry,”_ she hears over and over again and he looks like he’s in an almost physical pain.

She wants to ask him if he’s hurt…

One hand reaches for him unsteadily.

She wants to ask him…

But she’s too tired, the weights are pulling her down and he’s talking to her still. His hand sits warm against her cheek.

_“Jyn, stay with me, please.”_

It sounds like pleading, like a desperate frantic prayer.

It’s the last thing she hears as she succumbs to the weight and darkness swallows her whole.

\---

She drifts.

She dreams of things that seem strange and not quite real.

She dreams of white sterile walls and floating. She dreams of a droid staring at her.

And she dreams of him. Always of him.

\---

The first time she comes to consciousness slowly, like swimming from the deepest depths of the ocean to finally break the surface.

When she opens her eyes to white sterile surfaces and chilly air, K-2 is there and the seat beside him is empty.

“The others will be pleased you're not dead,” he says but she’s staring at the empty seat feelings something stirring in her chest.

She remembers blaster bolts and that look of pain on his face. Bloody hands and panicked words.

_“Cassian,”_ she says with a jolt of fear, “Where’s Cassian?” she asks and she tries to sit up which hurts like hell.

“Cassian is unharmed.” K-2 says “Draven finally dragged him off to be debriefed also you shouldn’t do that.”

He doesn’t have to say what as she flops back onto the bed with a grunt of pain.

“Bodhi,” she says aloud remembering shouting from the cockpit. Everyone sounding so _scared._

“Is Bodhi okay?”

“You were the only one harmed on the mission. Everyone else is well and have been visiting you frequently.”

She looks at the droid then with curiosity he must be able to read because he says sourly, “I have been here the _whole time.”_

And she wants to ask _why?_

She has so many questions but sleep is pulling at her again.

She tries to make her mouth work, tries to ask more questions about what happened and Cassian and that fear that doesn’t make any sense.

She falls asleep with a thousand questions sitting on her tongue.

\---

When she wakes up again the lights are dimmed and there is a weight on the bed beside her. Something warm pressing against her uninjured side.

She blinks and the world focuses around her and she looks to see Cassian.

_Cassian._

His head is resting on the mattress one hand reaching up towards her arm, but not quite touching her.

She can just make out the shape of him, where his edges have been touched by the dim almost blue light of the room. She can make out a jaw covered in stubble and a tumble of dark hair. He looks softer somehow, asleep in the dark.

K-2’s gone now. She wonders if Cassian sent him away or if he just got impatient and walked off.

And then there’s Cassian.

Right here, beside her.

On some level, maybe she’s been wishing for this for the last year.

On another level she kind of wants to hit him.

She knows now that she wasn’t imagining things on Scariff.

Back on Darknell...that was real...

She watches him sleep, half afraid of waking him, like it might break the spell and Cassian might leave again.

It’s stupid, but then she remembers the drive.

The reason for the whole kriffing mission in the first place and she sits up too fast causing her side to flare up like she set it on fire. The monitors attached to her momentarily blare out their own sort of alarm and Cassian startles awake as she curses and presses a hand to her side.

And he’s there, helping her lie back down oh so gently.

“It’s okay Jyn, it’s okay, you’re safe,” he’s saying and Jyn’s still trying to breathe through the pain when that turns into a rough cough. Suddenly the hands are gone and there’s a cup of water being pressed into her hands.

She drinks greedily, the cool water soothing the irritation in her throat. She puts the cup on the table beside her bed and looks at Cassian who is still standing over her, one hand still almost reaching towards her.

And then he’s pulling back, sitting in his seat and looking at her.

“Jyn,” he says and her name sounds heavy in his mouth. Loaded with new and strange meanings.

“Cassian,” she says and it’s not a question but it sounds like one. She frowns at him a little, still trying to piece it all together when he sighs and leans forward to press his face into his hands.

“I’m so sorry Jyn,” he murmurs and she can’t stop staring at him, waiting for him to make sense. Waiting for _anything_ to make sense.

“You were scared… Back on Darknell,” she says slowly and he nods, lifting his face from his hands and raking one hand through his hair. He looks harried as he glances up at her, plagued and problemed.

“I was,” he says and she just looks at him.

“Why?” she asks and she watches the question hit him almost like a physical impact.

For a moment he doesn’t speak, pressing one hand to his forehead and staring at something distant she can’t see.

“I wanted to quit spying for the Rebellion after Scariff y’know,” he says almost conversationally. The lines on his face seem to deepen as he continues, “Draven wouldn’t let me.”

And she wants to ask why but she doesn’t have to. His eyes flick towards her and away again and he adds, “It’s still possible, even now, that the Empire could decide to track down the identities of the Rogue One squadron. Draven promised to do everything in his power to keep our identities hidden and buried from the Empire as long as I kept working for him.”

And Jyn knew she never liked Draven meanwhile Cassian sighs again, low and slow and _so tired_ as he says, “And it’s dangerous to have connections when you’re a spy.”

He fixes her with a look that is so deeply sad it leaves her momentarily breathless.

“No group is impregnable, No matter how good our security is, spies could get in and if I was ever compromised the first thing they would do is find any connections they could exploit.”

And there’s that look again, like he’s begging her with his eyes to understand. Still she says nothing and he swallows.

“If people on the base knew about me and you, any spy could easily find out and they would come for you first and I…”

He trails off then looking so forlorn and she just stares and stares and finally when she finds her voice again she says, “So all this time you were… _Pretending_ to not give a shit about us...to keep us safe?”

Cassian nods miserably at the floor and Jyn leans forward with a grimace just so she can smack him upside the head.

He startles and look up at her and she’s grimacing from the pain of just sitting upright but she holds herself up so she can glare at him and say, _“You could have told us, you ass.”_

And Cassian’s jaw drops a little.

“You could have _told us,”_ she says again, her voice breaking just a little, “You could have let us make that decision for ourselves or maybe we could have just not hung out too much in public or _something. Stars_ Cassian we could have done something other than be miserable for a _year.”_

And his mouth hangs open now and there are tears in her eyes as she falls back onto her pillow and Cassian doesn’t say anything for a long moment. She hears him swallow before saying, “I thought you would move on with your lives. I thought…”

“You thought we wouldn’t miss you? You thought you would just spend the rest of your life alone except for a droid?” she asks, incredulous.

Cassian looks down at the floor, all she can make out is the mess rumpled dark hair.

And she reaches for him then, still angry and still sad and she catches the edge of his sleeve and fists her hand in it.

“I missed you, _you ass,”_ she whispers fiercely and Cassian looks at her then, eyes wide with something like wonder.

“I missed you,” she says again and her voice cracks and suddenly he’s on his feet so he can bend down and wrap his arms around her. It’s a gentle embrace, he touches her like she might break but he’s warm and she reaches up to curl her arms around his shoulders and they stay like that for the longest time.

“I’m sorry Jyn,” he murmurs into her hair and she just tightens her grip on him.

And breathes.

Finally he lets go and pulls back, his eyes are liquid as he looks down at her and she feels something tighten in her chest at the sight of it.

She still has a hand wrapped around his arm and she doesn’t let go.

“Stay with me,” she says and her voice trembles and he just smiles at her and nods.

“Always,” he says and presses his hand over hers, still clinging to his arm, “All the way.”

The next morning she’ll see Bodhi and Baze and Chirrut and Cassian will be forced to explain his terrible logic three times over and Jyn will smile through all of it like the sun peaking through clouds after a storm.

The next morning K-2 will ask if she’s ready to finally stop sleeping because it’s exceedingly boring and Jyn will laugh until her side aches from it.

The next morning she will wake up to Cassian beside her, his hand holding hers. And it will be enough.

They don’t know what to do about Draven yet, about Cassian’s spying and his neverending fears for their safety.

But they’ll figure it out together rather than apart and that will be enough. As long as he’s with her it will be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope y'all liked it!


End file.
